Pandora and Xenophilius
by seriousblahblah
Summary: How Xenophilius Lovegood and Pandora met and fell in love. Lovegood family fluff/romance. "Then you don't want me to avoid you?" "No! That was the most foolish request of all." Complete little fairytale :)
Disclaimer: Rhys Ifans is the most amazing Welsh actor and I love him as Xenophilius Lovegood and I'm a bit obsessed with him after how amazing he was in "Enduring Love" with Daniel Craig. I love crazy character actors.

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 ** _You Will Live on a Farm With Many Goats_**

 _~Lunae revelabit fortunae~_

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Xeno was a tall, lanky young man with a mop of blond hair and an impish grin fixed perpetually on his features. A smile resided in his friendly eyes, even when he was not smiling.

He was a Ravenclaw and one of the more popular students. Notable for not being terribly good at anything, neither academically nor at pranks. Yet, he was well liked for his general pleasantness and laid-back hippieish attitude. He often walked around the Hogwarts grounds without shoes on, and recited Muggle beatnik poetry spontaneously.

The girls in his year, and even some younger girls, hovered around him and followed him from class to class. They hung onto his every word and giggled at his Welsh lilt. They told him his voice was musical. He merely wired his brows at them, wondering what they meant; for he did play several instruments—the didgeridoo, the guitar, the Welsh flute and the lyre—yet he did not find his Welsh accent particularly musical. But then again, he did not often understand the feminine ways and mysteries—as much as he respected the feminine nature of the universe—so he merely nodded gracefully. He was never one to argue. And of all the girls that did _not_ hover around him and fawn over him, there was one that caught his eye.

Her name was Pandora.

.

Pandora was as blonde as him with flaxen hair, the colour of reeds, that she braided into a long, thick coil. Her eyes were the colour of cornflowers with hints of silver. And whenever she spoke, her voice was so soft it sounded like the trickling of water in a gentle spring.

He wished to see more of this girl. Though out of all the Ravenclaws, Pandora seemed singularly unimpressed by him. Which is why he went out of his way to try to be paired up with her and have the same classes. He was normally a very relaxed boy, but when the prospect of working with Pandora came up, his heart started to strum like a Welsh harp.

Laying back in his chair, he stared at those thick braids, dreaming of loosening the hair-tie, and uncoiling them layer by layer, wondering whether her locks would pass through the gaps between his fingers as the water from a fountain did. The footsteps of their Divination teacher pulled him out of his thoughts, and he sat up straight out of respect for her.

Their Divination teacher, Professor Peppercorn, was a short, stumpy woman with a severe haircut and sideburns. Xeno thought idly that he would not want to see her legs, for he felt certain they would be hairy. Still, he liked their Divination Professor well enough. He was increasingly enraptured by the many different and strange methods she gave them to divine things: like staring into teacups, pulling at daisies, twisting threads, throwing rocks, gazing into the stars or into Pandora's eyes...

"Ahem." Professor Peppercorn cleared her throat and brushed back a curl of her swarthy black hair to reveal radish earrings. Xeno admired her radish earrings for a moment, thinking how novel they were before his lucid eyes darted back to Pandora. "Short class today," Peppercorn announced dryly. "There is a lunar cycle completing tonight and Mars is rising today with the parallax of the moon..."

Xeno's attention drifted off as he stared at Pandora's small, pretty nose, which she was tapping with her quill.

"So," Professor Peppercorn said, and she held up a small crystal ball in her pudgy hands. "You will be each given a crystal ball, and your task is to stay up tonight and read it by the moonlight." She surveyed the class with knowing eyes. "Now, pair up!"

The lanky young Welshman immediately jumped out of his seat, nearly falling over, and was by Pandora's side in an instant to ask to be partnered with her.

Pandora rolled her large eyes at him. "You ask to be partnered with me in every class, Xeno."

"Yes." He smiled, feeling lost in the wonder of her blue gaze and close proximity.

"So, you haven't gotten tired of me?"

"Impossible," he said.

Pandora crossed her arms. "Well, don't you get tired of reading my fortune? We've already read each other's futures a dozen times and I keep getting the same thing for you: that you will live on a farm with many goats."

Xeno smirked, secretly thinking: 'Yes, well I keep hoping that one day, my future will be the same as yours.' Instead, he said, "Impossible."

Pandora sighed in resignation, then smiled a little at him, warming him to the core. "Oh okay, you great oaf. You go get the crystal ball and permission slip, and I'll meet you outside the tower at exactly twelve o'clock."

Xenophilius smiled brilliantly. "I'll be counting down the hours." He tapped at his wristwatch though it was on the wrong hour. He nodded. "Pandora."

She rolled her luminous large eyes again and left the classroom with a sweep of her long, blonde braids.

"Oh that _fenyw_ is driving me wild," he thought as he watched her hips sway.

.

For the rest of the day, he prepared for his midnight meeting with Pandora. Though it was not a date, just homework, they'd be alone together in the dark. So he made sure there were no cow-licks in his hair; he chewed on a sprig of parsley to freshen his breath; and used several spells to clear his head of Wrackspurts before he put on his best yellow dress shirt beneath his robes. Then he slipped up the tower like a knight awaiting his lady, with a heavy four pound crystal ball in his pocket.

Pandora was there with her hair undone and pyjama slippers peeking out beneath her blue, Ravenclaw robes.

"You look beautiful." The words just slipped out of his mouth.

Pandora raised a disapproving brow. "Could we just get this assignment over with?" She smirked. "I doubt it will take long staring into the crystal to see that you will become a farmer with many goats. Again."

Xeno smiled shyly before saying softly in his rich, deep Welsh lilt. "And that you will tell many stories, writing for a living?"

"Exactly." Pandora smiled. _Proudly,_ he thought, for she did indeed like to write, and tell many stories, some of which she'd been so kind to share with him once.

"Let's find somewhere comfortable to sit," she said, and grabbed him by the hand. His spirit buoyed at the sudden contact, and he cherished the feeling of her little hand in his warmer one. He told himself he would never forget this moment.

They found a comfortable spot by the edge of the Ravenclaw balcony and set the crystal ball down between them, careful not to break it.

Xenophilius lay down on the floor and leaned on his elbows to squint at the ball.

Pandora, on the other side, sat with her knees crossed and also looked intently at the ball.

"Do you see anything yet?" Pandora asked after they had sat in the dark for ten minutes in the same positions.

Xeno chuckled quietly. " _Shh_ Pandora, you have to wait for the moon to reveal herself before we can see things."

Pandora made a groaning sound. "So, how is being quiet going to affect the moon coming out?"

Xeno smiled in the darkness. "The moon is shy," he said with perfect sincerity.

"Oh right."

"She hides behind the clouds."

"It's cloudy," Pandora said flatly, and muttered something about being paired with a madman.

Still, she lowered her voice, and they waited quietly for the moon to come out from behind the clouds. Xeno could hear Pandora shiver, and offered his sweater to her, but she declined the wooly garment.

However, after a few minutes, the moon revealed itself, coming out from behind the thick spread of clouds, and shining down upon their crystal ball. The crystal, made of rose quartz, immediately lit up and seemed to glow under the moonlight.

"Oh it's kind of beautiful," Pandora mumbled as she stared wide-eyed at the pink and red light radiating from the crystal. She took out her wand and muttered the incantation they had been instructed to use: " _Lunae revelabit mea fortunae."_

"What do you see now?" Xenophilius asked, although he was completely distracted, and his eyes were on her beautiful face rather than on the crystal.

"I see..." She bit her lip and suddenly screamed. "I see goats!"

"Goats?" His ears immediately pricked up in interest.

"Yes, loads of them." She waved her wand frantically and repeated the incantation several times, hoping to clear the vision, but she kept seeing it. "It happened again, what do I do?"

Xeno was a mix of puzzlement and amazement. "But you're reading your fortune, not mine?"

"Yes!" Pandora screeched in panic. "But I see loads of them and my hair is long and loose and it looks like I'm living in the countryside with a little girl who looks like..." Pandora sounded completely humiliated. Xenophilius sensed that if it weren't for the dark, she'd be blushing right now.

"Goats?" he repeated, beaming. He was on cloud nine, because Pandora had just said she saw goats in her future. Everyone knew that the Lovegoods had a legacy of sheep and goat herding. Maybe they would end up together after all.

Of course, Pandora looked the opposite of happy about it.

"I'm sure it means nothing," Pandora grumbled. "Many people have goats."

Xenophilius grinned. "Sure. Maybe you decided to sell goats milk and soap? And I helped you?"

"Don't get any ideas." Pandora frowned and elbowed him. "What do you see?"

Xeno dropped his gaze from her face and back to the crystal ball. He stared very intently and muttered, " _Lunae revelabit mea fortunae."_

He waited and squinted at the moonlight shining through the ball until finally, he got an image.

He gasped in triumph. "I'm writing some kind of magazine!"

Now Pandora sounded completely angry. "No, that can't be! Writing is _my_ future, I always get that and yours is goats!" She pulled at her blonde hair and Xeno winced, hoping she didn't damage her beautiful locks. "Our futures must have switched around somehow. This can't be right. I can't have a future with you or goats or Nargles or anything weird and Welsh like that!"

She stared at him almost pleadingly. "Wait...Did you see that same little girl in your future?"

Xeno nodded grimly. "Yes I did." Secretly, he thought that she looked like their daughter. He should have been ecstatic, but Pandora seemed to be so unhappy about the portended future that he didn't even have the heart to smile.

"No." Pandora looked like she wanted to cry.

Xeno thought this over for some time before finally saying a with heavy heart, what he thought was the only solution. "Well, then you know what you must do: you must avoid me. If you don't want to have goats or me or that girl in your future."

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, that is what I must do."

Xeno got up sadly and wiped the dust off his pants. "Then I will leave you in peace from now on. Farewell Pandora."

"Thank you," Pandora whispered and searched his face, as if wondering whether he would keep true to his word.

.

Xeno, being a Lovegood and a gentleman, kept true to his word and avoided her at all costs. Though it pained him to be apart from her beautiful presence, he understood that if Pandora did not want a future with him or goats in it, he had to avoid her. Because, she clearly would fall in love with him, as the moonlight foretold. Xeno sighed sadly. Just as he thought he finally had Pandora, he'd had to let her go.

Yet it produced the oddest effect.

The more he avoided her and her cornflower blue eyes, the more Pandora sought him out and seemed to want to spend time with him. While before she didn't care, she even seemed to get jealous when he was surrounded by other girls. Because, he decided he had to move on, if Pandora was not the girl for him.

He was playing the lyre and reciting poetry to a Ravenclaw brunette one day when Pandora stumbled upon the scene and went pale. Xeno watched, perplexed as she ran off.

Until finally, he confronted her about it.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, and spoke to her with severity evident in his voice, despite how his eyes felt watery to behold her beautiful face after shunning her for so long.

"Pandora what are you doing? You must avoid me if you don't want...goats..." His voice trailed off as he saw her broken expression.

Pandora wiped at her red-rimmed eyes.

"Xeno, I think it's already too late." Her voice broke, as if what she said next cost her too much pride to admit. "I miss you. I've missed your company and your silly rhymes and beatnik poetry and shoeless serenades. And while I'm not in love with you, the thought of a future with goats and you and that little girl doesn't seem so bad."

Xeno smiled graciously. "Then you don't want me to avoid you?"

"No! That was the most foolish request of all."

.

Pandora lived a very happy life, with goats and moonlight serenades and eventually she did fall in love with Xenophilius Lovegood. Xeno could not be happier and Pandora realized she too was happy whenever she was with him. They named their daughter Luna, after the moonlight that brought them together.

~The End~

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A/N: TOTES MY GOATS. Shout outs to my betas! I make a lot of SPAG mistakes but you did a wonderful job catching them all...like a bunch of wrackspurts! Thanks, you know who you are :D

written for Divinations class.


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